The Saturday 8!

What a crazy week!

1. On Monday, we got up and went to school as usual. It's my day to work in the library, so I started the day with my usual duties: checking in books, putting them back on the shelf, and choosing a few books to feature that day. At 9:00, I go down the hall to aide in art class with the Kindergarteners. Before I even made it through the door, an announcement came on over the speakers saying that as the day's attendance was logged, they realized that more than 20% of the student body was out sick. Apparently our bylaws mandate that the school close in that instance, so everyone had to go home! I heard cheering all down the halls. Haha. (And before you ask, no it's not covid. It's the weird fever/stomach ache/exhaustion/sore throat/dry cough virus that's going around.) Our administrator also informed us that we'd be closed on Tuesday as well to give everyone another day to recover. And then Tuesday afternoon, we got an email that there were still too many sick students and school was closed on Wednesday as well!

My kids were thrilled, and I was happy to sleep in all week, but it was kind of bad timing for me. Not only is it finals week, it's one of the last weeks before Christmas break. I have so much to do while my kids are in school! They need to actually go so I can read hundreds of pages of my history book, write papers, finish Christmas shopping, and wrap presents! But we've also been talking in our Moms Bible Study about being intentional with our kids, and being the mom we want them to remember. So I really made an effort to spend time with them, to put my phone away (I haven't been doing super great with my no-scroll challenge), and to treat them with kindness and not as annoyances. And God gave me grace to do just that. (For the most part. I was still annoyed a lot. Lol.)

2. On Monday, our Advent activity was wrapping presents. Our family drew names this year, so the kids each bought (with my money) for one of their cousins. They had fun choosing and wrapping. The girls are obsessed with wrapping and continued on to wrap everything I've bought that isn't for them!

3. On Tuesday we had a painting party. This is one of my favorite mom tips: I go to Dollar Tree and buy an assortment of $1 wooden shapes/boxes/etc, grab a bunch of their acrylic paint, and toss it all on the table to let the kids go crazy with. Another mom tip: put down an old tablecloth first. And keep baby wipes at the ready. My kids are also much more likely to really get into painting time if I sit down and do it with them. So I painted a lovely ceramic chicken and a wooden box with them while we listened to Christmas music. And then I tried not to be too mad when they all scurried off after finishing and left me with this:

4. Every night at dinner, we've been reading our advent card together, and this week Lena took it upon herself to read a chapter from Luke each night. It's a chore to keep Levi still and quiet, and Lucy usually has to be forced to the table, but hopefully something is sinking in to their skulls and they're feeling loved and cherished because we sit down at the dinner table together.

Of course, almost every time we all make it to the table together, Levi exclaims, "Let's have a romantic dinner!" then proceeds to cover the table with candles and turn off every light in the house.

5. On Wednesday, since they still didn't have school and it was brutally cold outside, I made up a new Advent activity on the spot: bringing Daddy dinner at work. His latest job site is only 15 minutes from our house, so we grabbed some wings from Wing World and drove them over to him and his crew.

On Thursday Lena and Levi each made a card to mail to Great-Grandma. Lucy is too cool for crafts these days, so she missed out.

And then last night was our annual "Elf" viewing. This year we upped our game with some fancy hot chocolate.

Lena is my only willing photo participant lately.

I think this was the first year Levi really paid attention/understood the movie and genuinely laughed at the funny parts, so that was fun.

6. Tonight was our immediate family Christmas with Justin's family. His parents are leaving for Florida in a couple weeks, so Christmas came early for us! They spoiled us rotten with delicious Chinese food and tons of presents. I didn't take many pictures because I was busy being present and all that jazz!

Look what I got!

Have you ever seen such a cute tote bag in all your life??!!

💗💗💗

7. Despite my unexpected interruptions this week, I did manage to finish my semester of college classes . . . well, kind of. I got my big history paper turned in Tuesday night, then spent all day Thursday and half the day Friday working on my history exam. The professor posted the exam questions on Wednesday and told us to work on finding the answers between the textbook and the powerpoints he shared. He said that he would post the actual exam, where we just plug in the answers, on Friday and it'd be due that night at 11:59 p.m. He did it this way for the midterm exam too. That time, I faithfully kept up on the chapter readings every week and read every word of the material he posted online, yet I was completely lost when he posted the exam questions. I spent hours combing through notes and my textbook for the answers. This time, I decided I wasn't going to waste my time reading the chapters ahead of time, which meant that I ended up reading over 200 pages in two days in order to find the answers to the exam questions. 🤦 Not sure which method was most effective. Both were very time consuming. For the final there were 75 questions which printed out on 20 pieces of paper. Oy. And then he never posted the actual exam. It's almost 24 hours past the due date which completely stresses me out. I know that he brushed off my concerns about due dates before, I know that everyone else in the class is probably waiting for it to be posted too, I know that he'll have some elaborate excuse like he always does. But part of me wonders if I'm just missing it or doing something wrong, and panicking that I'm going to fail this awful class after all the work I've put into it because he won't believe me that I didn't see the exam link. Also, the semester ends on Tuesday, so he really needs to hurry up. Ugh. I will be so glad to be done with this class!!

8. I already shared all my pics from this week, but I've been collecting memes and keep forgetting to share them. So they're getting their own point this week.